Northwestern Mutual Van Buren Office Building

The seven-story, 145,000-square-foot Van Buren office building is designed as a lab to test new furniture and new ways of working, with the goal of selecting the best options for the Northwestern Mutual Tower and Commons (to be completed in 2017). The building is not meant to be a quick fix to house employees, but is a permanent piece of Northwestern Mutual’s downtown campus.

Originally built in the 1920s, the structure posed many challenges including low floor-to-floor heights, tight column grids, cavernous floor plates, and inconsistencies from multiple prior renovations. The visioning process pushed Northwestern Mutual to think differently about how work is done, leading to a workspace solution longing for bright, open and interactive spaces. This new way of working further magnified the building’s challenges.